Los Angeles, CA — Federal agents made a series of arrests last week that revealed targeted surveillance of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, a leftist organization based in southern California. Through an informant, at least one undercover agent, and online and physical surveillance the FBI tracked the group before intervening in what it calls a conspiracy.

The Department of Justice announced Dec. 15 that it had arrested four people it alleges planned to detonate pipe bombs on New Year’s Eve as part of an “anti-American,” “anti-capitalist” plot against two unnamed companies, revealing an investigation into the group. On December 17 another arrest was reported, targeting a person in Louisiana federal agents say is associated with the group, but not with the bombing plot.

The sting comes just weeks after the Trump Administration’s NSPM-7 memo, which announced plans to increase his administration’s targeting of leftists, and falls in line with the FBI’s long, fraught history of relying on informants to ensnare people in plots they may have never undertaken if not for the agency’s influence.

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Five alleged members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, a small, relatively new leftist organization based in southern California, were arrested December 12 for charges of possession of unregistered destructive devices, conspiracy, and threats in interstate commerce after a paid confidential human source and an undercover FBI employee began monitoring and reporting on the group’s activity. The paid confidential human source is said in the indictment to have been providing information to the FBI since August 2021.

The group, which first appeared online in July of this year, has a small internet presence. Videos and images posted to their Instagram center their anti-colonial, anti-capitalist politics and emphasize support for Palestine and Indigenous peoples in North America.

A criminal complaint was filed in the Central District of California on Dec. 13, 2025 by new FBI Special Agent Carolyn Thompson, who finished her training at the FBI Academy last December. The complaint says the alleged plot was uncovered in November when one of the arrestees, Audrey Carroll, gave a hand-written document spelling out a coordinated attack to an unnamed “confidential human source,” otherwise known as an informant.

For decades, the FBI has relied on informants to coax, and in some cases, entrap, organizers, activists and others in plots that may never have been conceived without their involvement.

In the years after the 9/11 attacks, the FBI targeted Muslims for undercover investigations and sting operations bordering on entrapment. Around the same time, in the early 2000s, federal law enforcement intensely targeted environmental and animal rights groups for undercover operations, leaning heavily on informants to glean information and land convictions.

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Past cases show a pattern of informants targeting politically active, but often young and unwitting, people who might have been involved in protest movements before but are often on the fringes of established organizing efforts.

Once someone has been established as a confidential human source, often out of coercion or motivated by money, the FBI works closely with them to gather information they are interested in.

The plan Carroll shared with the informant, according to the complaint, was for several people to plant improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, at five locations and detonate them at the same time on New Year’s Eve, damaging unnamed U.S. companies’ property in southern California.

The investigation draws on content from the group’s Instagram page and Signal group chats, though much of the evidence cited to establish probable cause for the arrests comes from the informant, the undercover FBI employee, and additional FBI surveillance.

Beginning in late November, the confidential source fed information to the FBI including names of participants, Signal messages, reports on meetings, audio recordings, photographs and copies of documents. In December, an undercover FBI employee joined the investigation and began attending meetings and surveilling the group.

As the complaint tells it, on November 26 the informant was given a handwritten plan by Carroll dubbed “Operation Midnight Sun,” apparently detailing a plot to bomb five locations of two U.S. businesses on December 31. No mention is made of how the informant was connected to the group up to that point or how the source began feeding information to the FBI.

On December 2, Carroll, Page and others met with the informant again in Los Angeles. There, according to the informant who audio-recorded the meeting, Carroll shared the same handwritten plan with two unnamed “co-conspirators.”

Five days later on December 7, the informant was joined by an undercover FBI employee, and the two met with Carroll again. This time alleged TILF members Zachary Page and Dante Gaffield were there too. The informant told agents that Carroll recruited Gaffield into the plan at that meeting, sharing the details of the plot with him.

While the informant and undercover employee met with members face-to-face, FBI agents surveilled and tracked participants, following them to and from meetings, watching as they picked up packages and materials supposedly meant for bomb-making, and prepared for a camping trip where they planned to test explosives, the complaint says.

On December 12, the group traveled to the Mojave Desert in the Lucerne Valley of California to camp and, according to the FBI, assemble pipe bombs to test before the New Year’s Eve attack.

The group traveled to the campsite in two separate cars – the informant rode in one, while the undercover fed rode in the other. There, the complaint says that Carroll, Page and another alleged member Tina Lai laid out bomb-making components on folding tables. Among the parts the FBI says the group brought were lengths of PVC pipe, potassium nitrate fertilizer, and material for fuses. A surveillance plane flew overhead, capturing video of the event.

When an alleged unnamed co-conspirator supposedly began grinding charcoal as a precursor for black powder, the undercover FBI employee alerted law enforcement. A SWAT team took Lai, Page, Carroll and Gaffield into custody. Each are being federally charged with conspiracy and possession of unregistered destructive device — they face upwards of 15 years in prison.

That day, FBI agents searched the arrestees’ homes and found posters and pamphlets in support of Palestine, “hand-written notes reflecting ideologies aligned with TILF,” and what the FBI says were more bomb-making supplies, according to the complaint.

The same day, across the country, the FBI arrested another person they say was tied to the group after surveilling their home and social media presence.

Micah Legnon, a former Marine, was allegedly traveling to New Orleans when they were intercepted by federal agents. A separate criminal complaint filed in the Western District of Louisiana claims they were traveling to the city to attack federal agents after ICE began it’s targeted operations there.

Legnon is named as a member of the Signal group chat that the FBI says TILF members used to plan the New Year’s Eve attack, which the complaint uses as probable cause to surveil and ultimately charge Legnon.

The complaint cites a Facebook post allegedly made by Legnon invoking the infamous standoff in Waco, TX, which saw 70 members of a fundamentalist Christian sect and four ATF agents killed, in reference to ICE raids happening in New Orleans. The post was interpreted by FBI Special Agent Paul Seller, who drafted the probable cause affidavit, as a threat to federal agents using interstate communications, Title 18 U.S. Code Section 875(C).

The complaint includes images of a Signal user, allegedly Legnon, announcing that they were on their way to New Orleans. Attached to the message was a video apparently showing body armor and a weapon the FBI says Legnon planned to use in an unspecified attack.

Beyond the information shared by human sources, the complaint relies on social media, handwritten notes found in a defendant’s home, and Signal messages to justify the targeting and arrests of the five people caught in last week’s arrests. The complaint says the group took measures to obscure their identities and cover their tracks, digitally and in person, adding to the state’s probable cause to arrest them.

The use of FBI informants to land arrests has long been criticized and scrutinized. And as the Department of Justice falls in line with Trump’s directives, more cases targeting his political enemies may arise.

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